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A little dash of panic

Interesting, intelligent analysis of American propaganda films and their societal impact.

A little dash of panic

By Jo Meek

American public information films weren't like the British ones. They were scary, for starters.

It was in postwar Britain and the US that public information films truly came into their own. In the wake of morale-boosting incitements to help the war effort came movie shorts designed to educate young people on the perils of everything from hot pans on stoves to the terrors of "reefer madness". But a search through the archives shows there was a marked difference in approach on either side of the Atlantic. Growing up is a hazardous business. We've all been warned of the dangers: fire burns, dogs bite, knives cut and open water is best avoided, at least until we can swim. As we get older, the lessons include other people, like avoiding bullies and overfriendly adults.

But as many of us probably have delighted in ignoring our elders and betters, public information ads have also done their best to prevent us from coming to harm. Some of the most well known and loved British public information films have included Jimmy Savile encouraging us to belt up with his "clunk-click every trip" campaign or the slightly scruffy and crazed (but extremely streetwise) Charley the Cat making sure we always told mummy where we were going. But these characters and the subjects they aimed to educate us about were tame compared with the fare being served up to kids in postwar America. By the end of World War II, the US had become the wealthiest nation in the world, in marked contrast to the grey austerity of postwar Britain. Instead of spreading contentment this prosperity coincided with a rise in gang crime, drug taking, drunkenness and dangerous driving among young people.

Rebellious pupils

Worried parents and teachers welcomed a new generation of specialist films designed to be shown in classrooms with titles like Boys Beware, DrugAddiction, and What About Juvenile Delinquency? These films were characterised by a lack of restraint on the part of their makers. The scarier the film, the likelier it was that schools would buy it to keep their rebellious pupils in the line. There was no regulation, and this industry of social education moviemakers could say and show pretty much anything. Often working out of their garages, they would pull kids off the street and put them in starring roles.

Stop, look, listen

In DrugAddiction, made in 1951, crazed "weedheads" laugh hysterically as they cut their mouths drinking from broken soda bottles. One toke of a joint would inevitably lead to mainlining heroin in these films, but the plot would be rounded off with a nice, happy, moral ending. Today's young and still innocent may never have had the opportunity to watch the films if it wasn't for a former writer on the Comedy Channel. Rick Prelinger is the founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 educational, industrial, and amateur films.
A child of the 1960s, he believes the films were made in the wake of postwar moral panic. "World War II was traumatic for the way Americans imagined society was supposed to be like. Kids were unsupervised, parents had been away fighting or working, so children had autonomy. There was the worry that we'd lose a generation. "Because of that a bunch of educators, sociologists and distinguished figures got together to try and train kids to be kids again." As early as the 1940s these 10-15 minute melodramas condensed and simplified complex social problems and wrapped them up with brazen scare tactics, to warn against drugs, dangerous driving, strangers and even homosexuals.

Wartime Role

The 1961 film Boys Beware, made by an amateur film maker called Sid Davis, warned its young viewers against men who cruise around in their Buicks looking for young boys to pick up to give them a ride home or take them fishing or show them pornographic cards. The film describes such a man, called Ralph, as having a "sickness of the mind". Across the Atlantic and the role of public information films in British society started as part of the war effort. In 1946 they were succeeded by material commissioned by the new Central Office for Information. Whilst some of the films commissioned by the COI have tackled subjects as difficult and dangerous as strangers, road safety, drugs and diseases, in general they have tended to be gentler, subtler, and often more intentionally funny. Sally Whetton, who has worked for the COI for nearly 20 years, believes humour has always been at the heart of their films. "The difference is that the American films are so much more instructional about how to live your life. There is less evidence of British films going into so much detail. We've always used wit and humour to get messages across." It's hard to measure the effect of the films on either side of the Atlantic, but for Ken Smith, an American enthusiast, social pressures and exposure to mass media may have nullified them. "Kids really tuned them out. By the 1960s it was just an exercise in futility."

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Seems the American government took it's cues from the Nazi propaganda machine in this respect. They not only scared people silly, but they also used this venue to lie to the people about imagined problems. Thereby keeping people distracted from the dirty-dealing the government was/is involved in.